Why do you need a qualified rot specialist for a dry rot survey

Dry rot is simple to understand, treat and to identify if you know how……Unfortunately the survey is sometimes left to a non qualified damp and timber so called specialist, that perhaps has the clients best interest at heart or not!!!

Today was a good day for my client though, she instructed me from a recommendation of a friend to carry out a dry rot survey of her listed property.
She was told she had dry rot and needed to have all first floor timbers cut back at least 1 meter, plaster hacked off full height, walls sterilised, new ornamental cornice, lime re-plastering all for the sum of £9,000.00 plus vat
For a start a sympathetic approach is needed with a listed building so my first thoughts were it must be bloody bad!
On entering the house I couldn’t smell the mushroom smell of the typical dry rot, I rolled the carpet back and lifted the boards on the first floor external wall, and this is the fruiting body that I removed .

This is not Dry Rot, this is Donkioporia Expansa

So in all fairness this does look similar to dry rot (serpula lacrymans) if you have no experience in dry rot. This isn’t dry rot, this is a white rot not a brown rot like dry rot. This particular rot is Donkiporia Expansa which particularly likes damp hardwood timbers. In this case it was an old oak lintel that was saturated from a leaking gutter that had caused the decay.
The repair works for this Donkiporia Expansa decay is small, fix guttering and promote drying of the wall and timber lintel, fortunately this hasn’t caused any necessary repairs.

Obviously my client was a very happy lady and the house sale could proceed and so was I as I got given a box of cookies 🙂

This just shows why when choosing a so called damp and timber specialist to carry out a survey of your property or a pre purchase survey for you, check to make sure the surveyor is qualified and is a member of the Property Care Association http://www.property-care.org